Real name : Zhou Tai An e-mail : kain@pacific.net.sg Character Name : Sakura Hoshino Age : 15 Nationality : Japanese (can only speak the English taught by the school system in Japan - i.e not much.) Physical Description : Attractive, with long blue hair usually kept shoulder length. Slim but with a good figure. Ah, hell, basically your Typical Anime Babe character but in better taste. ^_^ Hair and hairstyle : Blue, dark blue highlights. Styled somewhat like a cross between Misato and Asuka's. Eyes : Black Appearance Notes : None. Visually stunning. ^_^ Family Status : None, excepting a missing guardian, Shiori. Both her parents were killed in the 2nd Impact. Housing : A nice clean small apartment somewhere in Tokyo-3, with all the necessities (arcade, food, laundry etc) within walking distance. Otherwise known as Killer College Digs. ****** Personality ****** General : Bubbly and overall very lively, but NOT to the point of Miaka\Usagi empty-headedness. Friendly and quite extro-verted, but again, able to keep her wits about her\seems younger than she actually is. Speaks normally. Special\Quirks : Tendency to space out when uing telepathy. Is bisexual. Regards you intently when thinking hard, usually causing some degree of surprise. (As she is normally bubbly and all.) Occasional depressive spells when unoccupied. (see later sections) Love interests : Her "older sister." Shiori Kanazawa, currently away somewhere. Friends : Not many. She's not a native to Tokyo, after all. She knows one or two people in town, mainly casual acquaintances. Rivals : Yuki Shinohara, martial artist currently out of town and travelling. (Yuki does hail from Tokyo) Friends and rivals since a young age. On good terms. Enemies : None. Some previous opponents might hold grudges, but besides that she's in the clear. Skills : An experienced martial artist. Can control psychic abilities to reasonable extent. Can cook adequately and operate a computer. (That's just operating, nothing snazzy.) In all other respects, like a normal 15 year old. Oh, and she has a motorcycle which she rides and takes care of well. Lack of Skills of Note : Considering the amount of money (exact amount unknown to her) that her father has left her, one would expect a bit more competency with it, but since she's let Shiori take care of all the major transactions, and that she doesn't need it at the moment, (besides buying the motorcycle) she's not too good at things besides buying groceries and the like. No skill with investing or anything. She also tends to underestimate the effect or her appearance - which, though not supermodel class, is definitely something you don't see everyday. ****** Combat : Style : MugenTenshinRyuu. An extremely rare style only known to a select few practioners. It involves fast, furious attacks utilizing all parts of the body, with the user's mind and body uniting in absolute synchronity for a while. However, the drawback to this is that continued usage of the TenshinRyuu causes extreme tiredness. (Note : MugenTenshinnRyuu translates to "Imperial Dragon Without Limits Style.") Reactions : Sakura, confronted with a combat situation, will usually react by focussing her psychic energy and briefly (VERY briefly) scan the opposition. Then she rushes in with a minimum of planning. Given her training and the fact that she IS psychic, she doesn't lose often - however, if the fight seems to be going the wrong way, she usually has the presence of mind to retreat unless motivated emotionally. Is not ruffled at all by hard fighting - she's had to train against worse. With the EVA, after the initial disorientation, she should fight exactly the same way. In fact, the utter concentration that the TenshinRyuu enforces should help immensely with synchronization, but she'll have to get used to no flying kick\kick\punch\slam combo all the time. (There is the umbilical cable...) Backstory (YES! More ANGST! ^_^) Sakura doesn't remember her childhood. Period. Her earliest recollections are from the age of 5, when she was taken into the care of a foster parent. None of the 7 she was shuttled to from the age of 6 to 10 were particularly evenful for her, until Shiori, that is. She was unable to make friends easily due to her uncontrolled psychic abilities (although she learned to control them at an early age) and didn't have an exactly wonderful childhood. All her parents were kind of understanding enough, but there was always this sense of waiting...waiting for something to happen. She took up karate as a hobby, and eventually managed to enter some competitions, winning a decent amount of time. Until Shiori. She took Sakura back to her home on Kirishima Isle (yes, this exists) and slowly guided her in the ways of TenshinRyuu, at the same time being the only person who truly understood Sakura's repressed psyche and powers. Her last guardian slowly proved to be the best thing in Sakara's life, even letting her buy a bike (which became her second love) so she could get around the island to practise in the more difficult spots. And the village was nice. Sakura couldn't help think that Shiori was at times...a bit aloof. But she did tell Sakura a bit about her parents, helped her understand her money (quite a bit of it) and most importantly, herself and her powers, sitting with her and even letting her ward probe her mind to gain better control. And she was only all of 20. (Of course, by this time it won't come as much of a surprise to find out that Sakura calls Shiori "onee-sama.") Then the dreams came. Shiori always thought it was repression, and explained it carefully and gently to Sakura as such, but that didn't stop the pain. Or the nightmares. Or the small, tantalizing glimpses of her parents. Or the angels which turned to huge, hulking monsters, and the raging flames that burned all around them. It was nothing short of a miracle that Sakura didn't hurt someone at that time with her psychic abilities, but Shiori got her through it all. Until one night it was all too much and they...did it, in the bathroom. With each other. Because Sakura had never realized that her older sister could be as sad, too or need someone. And now she could both destroy that sadness, like she had done for her, and be that someone. That was when she was 14. That was also the best year of her life until she heard that she was summoned by something called NERV, and that her sister was going away "somewhere" But she'd be back, she said so, and before she left she took care to train and guide Sakura in everything she needed to know a last final time before she went. The dreams stopped at about that time. And that, of course, is the beginning of our story... ****** (A note about Sakura's training. Though she's only 14 and human (^_^) she took to it extremely well, and had an excellent teacher to boot - not forgetting her psychic abilities. That might account for some of the stats here. I've still tried to keep it realistic, though.) Speed : ****** Power : **** Stamina : ****** Will : ***** (usually only under training conditions) Strategy : **** (***** under pressure. She's been in tournaments) Cunning : *** Ego : *** Skills : Karate : Disciple MugenTenshinRyuu (which is based on Karate) : Champion\Master EVA Piloting : Novice (I know the martial arts prowess is a bit finicky, but she didn't have much to do on a island - no TV. (Kirishima is one) Besides, with her "onee-sama" wanting her to practise...) Attitude : Easy-going. The above section should sum it up some. (Yes, I know Sakura has some heavy psychological baggage, but Shiori has gone a long way to dispelling that. It does manifest in occasional depressive spells, though see above.) Weaknesses : The aforementioned psychological baggage. She is understandably VERY concerned about anything regarding her "older sister". She also suffers from the insecurity all orphaned children have. Her dreams also scare (or rather, scared) her a great deal. However, this is all pretty much buried and won't resurface unless she is subjected to a lot of stress - she's begun to work through it herself, but as she's only 15 it'll take some time for any progress to show.